Read an Excerpt
The Spiritual Brain
A Neuroscientist's Case for the Existence of the Soul
Chapter One
Toward a Spiritual Neuroscience
In June 2005, the historic World Summit on Evolution was held on the remote island of San Cristobal in the Galápagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador. The unassuming location, Frigatebird Hill, was chosen because it was the very spot where Charles Darwin first docked in 1835 to probe the "mystery of mysteries"—the origin and nature of species, including (and perhaps especially) the human species.
These isolated Pacific islands lying on the equator later became a stopover for pirates, whalers, and sealers who drove the unique life forms that Darwin studied to the brink of extinction. But still later, under government protection in the twentieth century, the islands evolved into a sort of shrine to materialism—the belief that all life, including human life, is merely a product of the blind forces of nature.1 In the materialist's view, our "minds"—soul, spirit, free will—are simply an illusion created by the electrical charges in the neurons of our brains. Nature is, as Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins famously put it, a "blind watchmaker."2
The Galápagos meeting was quickly hailed as the Woodstock of Evolution. The scientists present, a "Who's Who of evolutionary theory,"3 were well aware of their own importance and the significance of the proceedings. "We are simply stunned to be here," wrote one science journalist, recalling that the elite audience listened to the familiar tale of evolution "rapt,like children hearing the retelling of a favorite story."4
According to the favorite tale, human beings are merely "a bizarre tiny clade," in the words of one attendee.5 And the mission of the next summit promises to tell that tale to the whole world.6 However, to judge from the growing dissension around the teaching of evolution, the world has heard it already.
A Series of Mindless Events?
A key figure at the conference was American philosopher Daniel Dennett. Dennett, who bears a striking physical resemblance to Charles Darwin, is a world-famous philosopher of mind. He is the favorite philosopher of those who think that computers can simulate human mental processes. Curiously, for a philosopher of mind, he hopes to convince the world that there isn't really any such thing as a mind in the traditional sense. He is best known, perhaps, for saying that "Darwin's dangerous idea" is the best idea anyone ever had, because it firmly grounds life in materialism. As he understands it, human beings are "big, fancy robots" and, better still:
If you have the right sort of process and you have enough time, you can create big fancy things, even things with minds, out of processes which are individually stupid, mindless, simple. Just a whole lot of little mindless events occurring over billions of years can create not just order, but design, not just design, but minds, eyes and brains.7
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